Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The figures covered both approved housing bodies and local authorities.

Even the figures the Taoiseach mentioned of 2,000 this year and 3,000 will go nowhere near dealing with the crisis. We all have families coming to us every week in dire situations. I have a family of a mother and three children living in a hotel in Cork who have been on the city housing list for ten years. To get a council house now in Cork, one has to be ten years on the list. The Government and its agencies seem paralysed by the scale of the crisis and the response is in no way proportionate to its severity. I have to put that to the Taoiseach. All this bandying about of billions and figures means nothing because we all know, deep down, that local authorities are not building houses at the rate they should be. They should not be buying houses in the private market at this juncture because they are competing with young couples and contributing to house price inflation. It is estimated that they could build houses for €200,000, at cost, yet they are going out there and paying €400,000 for housing in the leafy suburbs.

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